IN THE NATION

IN THE NATION; Who's a Partisan?

By Tom Wicker

Published: December 12, 1990

Milton Berle is back on television and Dan Quayle is back in action. In his appearance before the Republican governors, however, Mr. Quayle was funnier than Uncle Miltie.

"By portraying themselves as the party of peace, and the Administration as the party of war," the Vice President solemnly declared, some Congressional Democrats "seem to have placed partisanship above statesmanship."

This surely was the greatest flipflop since George Bush forgot to read his own lips. At least since the third Administration of F.D.R., Republican orators have castigated the Democrats as "the party of war" because they were in office when World Wars I and II and the Korean War began -- an exercise in partisanship that should make a precinct captain blush. With more justice, Vietnam later was added to the litany, which some Republican candidates still recite.

Now, to a partisan audience, in a speech dripping with partisanship, a Republican Vice President accuses the Democrats of "partisanship" and lack of "statesmanship" -- whatever that is -- for "portraying" the Republicans as "the party of war." The pot calls the kettle black, and fails to recognize the irony.

Mr. Quayle's remark did serve to make a serious point he did not intend. Since the Republicans came to the White House with Ronald Reagan in 1980, they have been the more warlike of the parties -- in Nicaragua, Lebanon, Grenada, Panama, now in the Middle East; and they boast that their military buildup brought the end of the cold war (a plausible argument that nevertheless overlooks the Soviet Union's now-apparent internal problems).

The last point is ideological, reflecting a more virulent anti-Communism. Others on the list are at least partly attributable to being in power; Democrats and Republicans, depending on who was in the White House, have been addicted to military intervention in the Caribbean and Latin America. Since World War II, Presidents of both parties have shown themselves willing, sometimes eager, to "project American power" abroad.

In part this has been the necessity of responsibility, at least as Presidents have seen their responsibilities. One of any administration's prime duties is to conduct a strong foreign policy and safeguard the perceived national interest -- as Harry Truman, Democrat, tried to do in Korea and as George Bush, Republican, is doing in the Middle East.

In part, also -- often in larger part -- Presidents have succumbed to what former Senator William Fulbright called "the arrogance of power." They had it, so they used it, sometimes with results ranging from unhappy to disastrous -- as with President Kennedy at the Bay of Pigs, Johnson and Nixon in Vietnam, Reagan in Lebanon and Bush in Panama. Two Democrats, three Republicans; more important, five Presidents, five Commanders in Chief.

Mr. Quayle, regaling the Republican governors with the lack of statesmanship of the other party, made still another point not in his prepared remarks: Presidents tend to confuse their policies with the will of the people, and to cloak their decisions in the stars-and-stripes of patriotism. "The fact of the matter is," the Vice President claimed, "that the American people support the President."

The American people did support the deployment of U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia to stop Iraqi aggression and the threat to oil supplies; so did most Congressional Democrats. But the fact of the matter really is that every poll, and any man-on-the-street investigation, discloses that the same American people have deep qualms and many reservations about launching a war against Iraq -- for the above purposes or any Mr. Bush has been able to make clear.

"A Congress solidly united behind the President would strengthen our chances for peace," Mr. Quayle argued. So it might, if it's assumed that Mr. Bush's policies "strengthen the chances for peace." Or Congress might unite behind him if Presidents were immune to challenge, or if, in fact, their policy decisions in some mysterious way did reflect, or become, the will of the people.

But Americans have no reason any longer, if they ever did, to assume Presidents know best. In a democracy, even Presidents never can or should be freed from challenge. And if George Bush takes the nation into war in the Middle East, without further cause -- particularly since the hostages have been freed -- he's likely to find out that its people will be anything but united in his support.